


There Must Be Better Ways

by skoosiepants



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7849108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skoosiepants/pseuds/skoosiepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is totally unfair. This crush has been terrible but manageable; he hardly ever saw Derek outside of the occasional diner run-in and all the summer BBQs, and Derek always looks like being in any public setting is excruciating—his broody scowls are devastating enough, now he gets to imagine him <i>happy.</i></p><p>Is it possible to die from unrequited love and pining?</p><p>Or-</p><p>Derek the fireman keeps saving Stiles from himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Must Be Better Ways

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr for thebestfonewm: Derek the Fireman saving Stiles and a kitten from a tree.
> 
> Cleaned up and edited, still a hot mess of pining and Isaac being a (brotherly) dick.

Stiles is not stuck. To random passers-by it could _appear_ that he is stuck, but he’s completely capable of getting down off this motherfucking tree all by himself. There was absolutely no reason to call the fire department, _Isaac_ , given that they have a perfectly serviceable ladder in the garage, and Stiles totally has the agility of a jungle cat. Climbing down this tree should be a piece of cake. It’s just that, you know: tiny kitten.

And Tiny Kitten is currently digging pinprick claws into Stiles’s shoulder and neck while he clings to the tree trunk, so any false move might result in her accidentally slicing his throat. He’s being _cautious_ , never mind the fact that it’s been the better part of an hour and he hasn’t moved an inch.

If Isaac could just stop laughing his fucking face off and actually help him, there wouldn’t be sirens growing louder and louder as a giant fire truck turns down his street.

Stiles is going to kill him. He just has to get back down on the ground first.

“You better run, Lahey,” Stiles says, and Isaac laughs so hard he collapses onto the grass.

What makes it worse or better, Stiles isn’t exactly sure, is when Derek Hale steps down off the truck, scowls hard enough to wrinkle that perfect brow, and says, “This isn’t an emergency.”

Stiles yells, “Blame Isaac!”

Boyd crosses his arms and looks vaguely amused, while Erica joins Isaac in laughing—at least _Scott_ seems kind of concerned about him. He says, “Don’t worry, bro, we’ll get you down safe.”

Derek huffs and carts out a ladder off the truck, but instead of just letting Stiles climb down it by himself, Derek actually comes _up_.

“This is totally unnecessary,” Stiles says to him. This close to his face, Stiles can see the sparkling amusement in Derek’s eyes, even when paired with the flat, grumpy line of his mouth.

Derek arches an eyebrow and wordlessly scoops Tiny Kitten off Stiles’s shoulder. He tucks her into his jacket in a way that is not at all _freaking adorable_ , and then steps a couple rungs down so Stiles can maneuver himself onto the ladder, too.

It’s actual torture, Stiles thinks, fitting his sweaty, anxious body into the curve of Derek’s. His fingers hurt from the tree bark, and Derek has his hands on Stiles’s ribcage, steadying him, warm and too big. Stiles doesn’t really remember how he even got fifty feet up in the air to begin with—Tiny Kitten just kept going higher, and then suddenly there was a likely probability of Stiles plummeting to his death.

When Stiles gets close enough to Derek for him to fully wrap an arm around his waist, he takes a deep breath and finally relaxes his grip on the tree.

Derek says, “Keep up,” in his ear, and Stiles barely holds back a shudder before matching his steps with Derek’s as they slowly make their way down.

It’s like: Stiles has dreams about this, only they’re more horizontal and there’s less clothing involved.

His legs feel like jello when they finally touch the ground, but he still dives after Isaac the second Derek releases him. He practically falls onto Isaac and rings his arms around his neck, twisting him into a headlock.

Isaac’s laughter peters off into giggles as he pushes weakly at Stiles’s chest, and then he rolls onto his back and takes Stiles’s entire body with him.

“You’re an asshole,” Stiles says, kicking him in the shins as he lets go. There’s a minute or two when he just lies in the grass and breathes.

And then Derek reaches down, grabs both of Stiles’s arms, and hefts him back up onto his feet. When he’s steady, he places Tiny Kitten in the cup of his hands—she’s a long-haired gray tabby, with a white patch on her face, a pink nose and little wispy things sprouting out all over her head.

“I’m calling you Vanessa,” Stiles says, holding her up to his face so they can properly soul-bond through a nice, thorough stare-down. “Vanny for short, and Miss Vanessa Soft-foot Lilypad Stilinski for long.” She’s floofy like an angel; Stiles can’t wait to cut her nails so she can no longer eviscerate his person.

Derek snorts, but places one massive paw on top of Vanny’s head and sort of ruffles her ears. She gives her head a shake and sneezes, and Derek grins.

The grin makes his face light up; he flashes his bunny teeth, and Stiles feels like an anvil’s been dropped on top of his head.

He might’ve stopped breathing for a long, inadvisable second.

He’s pretty sure he saw a _dimple_.

Crap. This is totally unfair. This crush has been terrible but manageable; he hardly ever saw Derek outside of the occasional diner run-in and all the summer BBQs, and Derek always looks like being in any public setting is excruciating—his broody scowls are devastating enough, now he gets to imagine him _happy_.

Is it possible to die from unrequited love and pining?

Derek pokes Isaac in the chest on his way back to the truck and says, “You’re getting a fine if you do this again.”

The warm ball of fondness in the pit of Stiles’s belly at Derek’s kind of, offhand, vague disgruntled-ness on Stiles’s behalf is probably totally unwarranted. Derek’s most likely more mad that they brought the truck out for nothing than anything else. Still.

He sticks his tongue out at Isaac and smirks.

*

Stiles and Derek were three years apart in school.

It wasn’t until Stiles hit fifteen that he truly noticed how fine Derek’s thighs were in his track and field uniform, how he kind of wanted to rub himself all over Derek’s chest hair, so it was truly tragic that he only had a half year to gaze upon his hotness before Derek graduated and moved on to college.

And then three days after Stiles himself graduated out of Berkley with something resembling a diploma and no job prospects other than an eight hour block of retail work every Saturday at B&N, that Stiles ran into Derek again in Big Tim’s Diner in the heart of downtown Beacon Hills. Stiles remembers that day fondly: Derek’d had on shorts and a BHFD t-shirt and a wild-man beard that was traveling dangerously down his neck. He’d had raccoon eyes and a slump to his shoulders as he ordered an industrial sized coffee to-go and Stiles had to clench his hands around his plate of pancakes to fight the urge to climb him like a tree.

High school crush: 1; Adulting: 0.

Stiles wasn’t all that upset about it.

And now, Stiles himself has been rescued. He has known the feel of those manly arms around his body, and he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t man up and finally ask Derek out, Isaac, the bitch, will do it for him.

“Stop being so tall,” Stiles says, slapping at the back of Isaac’s head.

 _Stiles_ is tall, Isaac has no business towering another three feet over him.

Isaac grins cheekily at him, but ducks around the fire truck and out of his way.

Derek has a hip cocked, leaning up against a bank of open uniform lockers. He has on suspenders, they sort of bow out from his pecs and the way his t-shirt is wearing his perfect abs, because life is unfair.

Stiles presses his palms together and says, “So, Derek,” and then his throat closes up and it’s like Stiles is allergic to Derek’s biceps, who said he could cross his arms like that?

He can hear Isaac cackling in the distance. Stiles doesn’t know why he puts up with him—he was a stray puppy his dad brought home years ago and even though he’s grown up to be a huge pain in Stiles’s ass, it’s not like he can just dump him off at the SPCA. They’re _family_ ; it makes Stiles want to throw up and also tackle hug him at surprise intervals in the middle of the day.

Scott wanders by and says, “Hey, Stiles!” and Stiles automatically gives him a fist bump-bro hug.

It manages to break whatever spell Derek’s muscles have over him, so that’s good, but it also brings in Erica, who curls up into Derek’s side and smiles at Stiles like she wants to eat him.

More importantly, it’s a party over here now; how is Stiles supposed to ask Derek out in front of all these witnesses?

Erica says, “What’s up, Stiles?” and Stiles accidentally blurts out, “Do you want to go get coffee?”

*

This is a disaster. This is terrible; this is the literal _worst_. Erica says, “If you don’t stop banging your head on the table I’m going to get a complex.”

“No, you won’t,” Stiles says, voice muffled. He’s ninety-nine percent certain Erica only said yes because she thought it was funny, and he’s also ninety-nine percent certain Erica and Boyd have been dating for at least six months now.

She flicks a packet of sugar at him.

Stiles groans and wishes his life were over.

“Stop being so dramatic,” Erica says, but when he glances up at her she’s grinning like this is the best thing that has ever happened to her ever.

Stiles says, “You’re evil.”

Erica pushes her palm into his forehead and says, “You’re missing the bigger picture here, Stilinski. We’re making Derek _jealous_.”

Stiles doesn’t see how this could possibly make Derek jealous. For one, no one could’ve missed the elaborate Erica and Boyd dance of will-they won’t-they during the past year. For two through a million, Derek is Derek and Stiles is that weird kid who wrote a high school econ essay on penises.

“Come on,” Erica says, nudging his coffee closer to him, “at least act like you’re enjoying my company.”

“I don’t have to _act_ ,” Stiles says, and it isn’t until he catches Erica’s brilliant, pleased smile that he realizes how much of an ass he’s being about this. He sighs and says, “Sorry.”

Erica shrugs. She says, “Isaac has a betting pool,” and _of course_ he does, Stiles is going to really kill him, this time, he’s going to strangle his spindly neck and get his body stuffed as a trophy. “If we get this locked down in a week I win two hundred dollars.”

Stiles squares his shoulders and says, “Tell me what to do.”

*

The fire is not Stiles’s fault.

Or, at least, he doesn’t _set out_ to start an actual fire—maybe just some smoke?—and the fact that there’s an actual fire is really the fault of the fire pit, and how there should be a warning about using that much lighter fluid.

Side note: there was probably a warning. Stiles isn’t big on reading directions until after he’s already done the thing he wasn’t supposed to do.

And now he’s got burns on his hands and Derek looks furious, looming over the paramedics, and now is probably not the time to ask him out on a date.

His palms are nearly mummified when he says, “Can I take you to dinner? For, you know,” he waves his hands, “saving my life?”

Derek scowls harder and says, “Are you kidding me right now, Stiles?” and Stiles has five seconds of chest-clenching hurt melt through him before it turns into a sort of mellow, inevitable embarrassment.

He can feel his face turn blotchy red. Erica’s plan of appealing to Derek’s hero complex obviously sucks balls. He says, “Yeah, no, of course not,” and winces in pain when he tries to wipe a hand across his jaw.

*

Stiles drowns his disappointment in mint chocolate chip ice cream and Jägermeister, and then comes out the other end feeling fine.

Totally fine and dandy, there is absolutely no snot on his t-shirt from a sugar fueled crying jag, and Isaac definitely didn’t have to toss him fully clothed into the shower to get him to stop sobbing. He’s a weepy drunk, it has no correlation to the way Derek ripped his heart out in front of Jamie the EMT.

Jamie, who had sent him home with burn cream for his hands and his one free sandwich card from Manhattan Bagel.

His dad’s gonna know about this before the week is out. Relations between the FD and the PD are already strained; this isn’t going to be pretty.

Stiles is deep into a Teen Moms marathon, Vanny curled in his lap, a blanket pulled up over his head for maximum moping, when there’s a knock at the door. He tries to ignore it, but the knocker is annoyingly persistent, and Isaac is home. Stiles isn’t sure why he agreed to share a house with Isaac after they both moved out of his dad’s, he should have realized it would ruin his life.

Stiles is acutely aware he has chocolate all over his mouth when Derek walks into the room and stands next to his couch.

“Uh.” Stiles glances over Derek’s shoulder and sees Isaac give him a thumbs-up from the kitchen doorway.

Derek looks kind of sick to his stomach when he says, “Stiles,” and Stiles licks his lips. He’s not exactly sure what’s happening here, but he has a bad feeling about it.

Derek says, “I’m, uh, sorry about the other day,” which is—he doesn’t have to apologize for saying _no_ ; everyone has the right to say no, that’s ridiculous!

“Dude, no,” Stiles says, shaking his head.

“You could have been really badly hurt,” Derek says, shifting awkwardly back and forth on his feet. “I didn’t mean…” He trails off, visibly frustrated.

Stiles scrunches his face up, confused. “Okay?”

“Right, I,” Derek half-turns, looks at Isaac. His shoulders slump. “I should go.”

The disappointment of the other day flows back through Stiles in full force, along with a healthy dose of self-preservation that makes him sit up straighter. Stiles doesn’t need Isaac telling Derek to come visit to make him _feel better,_ geez. This is just a clusterfuck of well intentions; he wants to go drown himself in alcohol again.

Stiles forces himself to relax and says, “Sure,” keeping it light and breezy. He must miss the mark a little, given Isaac’s grimace.

Derek just clenches his jaw, though, and leaves.

*

“You two are the worst,” Isaac says around a mouthful of pizza. “I wanna disown you but I think Dad would veto it.”

Dad would most certainly veto that. Stiles shoots Isaac a dirty look and then continues murmuring sweet nothings to Vanny and feeding her little bits of pepperoni.

Stiles calls Isaac a punk bitch, and this is probably why three days later he ends up stuck on the roof.

*

He should have realized it was a _blatant lie_ when Isaac had called and told him, panic stricken, that Miss Vanessa Soft-foot Lilypad Stilinski was up on the roof.

But Stiles is slightly irrational where Vanny is concerned, and that’s how Isaac got him two and a half stories up in the blistering hot sun, and how he was frantic enough to miss Isaac yoinking his ladder away.

“What is wrong with you?” Stiles shouts down at him.

Isaac ignores him, stores the ladder back in the garage, and then hops into Stiles’s jeep and drives away. The tires screech as he peels out. Stiles is going to _destroy him_ when he gets down from there. There’s going to be motherfucking _carnage_ , and see if Stiles ever makes his lasagna for Isaac ever again.

Stiles barely lasts a half hour before attempting to call for help. See, Stiles is shade-folk, and there is no shade on the roof. He starts feeling crispy fifteen minutes in, and then he’s dialing Scott.

Scott doesn’t pick up.

He calls Kira and gets a nervous, “Hey, Stiles, bye Stiles!” and then Erica just laughs and laughs and laughs.

His dad’s in the middle of a homicide case, so he answers with an understandably terse, “This better be good, Stiles.”

“This is so good, Dad,” he says, and then, “Isaac trapped me on the roof.”

There’s a beat of silence. And then his dad says, tiredly, “Somehow, I have failed you both,” and hangs up.

Stiles groans and falls face first on the gently sloping shingles. He’s going to die up there. The vultures are already circling. The back of his neck is on fire.

He perks up minutely at the sound of a car door slamming, but figures it’s just Isaac coming back—Dad probably called him and chewed him out.

He hears the garage door, and then a few minutes later, the ladder hits the gutters on the front of the house with a clang.

A gruff voice says, “Isaac called me.”

“Holy crap.” Stiles's head darts up and he blinks bright sunshine out of his eyes. Fucking Isaac.

Derek Hale is perched at the top of his ladder. His face is doing something complicated, like a half-smile, half-frown, but he doesn’t look too unhappy to see him. There’s a little exasperation in his words when he says, “Are you ready to come down now?”

“I wasn’t ready to be up here in the first place,” Stiles says, grumbling, but he pushes himself upright and crawls over. When he gets to the ladder, Derek just sort of…silently stares at him, frozen in place. And it’s not like the tree, there’s pretty much no way Stiles can get on the ladder with Derek still anywhere near the top of it, so they’re kind of stuck staring at each other until Derek moves his ass.

He opens his mouth to say as much when Derek beats him to it with a, “You have the worst timing.”

“Uh, _I_ do?” Stiles says, because what is happening here, Stiles would like to get out of the sun and maybe bathe in a tub full of ice cubes and live in a cave for three days.

Derek rolls his eyes. He says, “Come down, and then we’ll talk about dinner.”

“This feels patronizing,” Stiles says as Derek starts down before him. He looks over the edge of the roof. “Are you patronizing me? Is this pity? I don’t need a pity dinner, Derek, I didn’t get stuck up on the roof _on purpose_.”

“It’s not a pity dinner,” Derek says without looking up at him. It almost seems like he’s blushing, but it’s so sunny out it’s hard to tell for sure.

Stiles sighs and grabs hold of the top of the ladder. It takes barely a minute, following Derek over the edge and clamoring down the noisy aluminum.

“So,” Stiles says when he’s got both feet on the ground again. For all his awesome observational skills, Stiles isn’t always the best at reading the scene. “Thanks.”

Derek nods.

Stiles shoves both hands in his pockets, takes in the way Derek keeps looking at him and looking away, how his eyes are this amazing, soft spring green in the bright sunlight, how his hair is sweaty around his neckline, how his scruff is getting long again, and little curls of chest hair peek out from the v of his t-shirt.

Stiles takes a deep breath and says, “For the record, I like you. Like, I want to date you.” He makes sure his words are nice and clear, because he figures it’s either all or nothing right now, and if Derek blows him off again at least he’ll know there won’t be any misunderstandings involved.

Derek ducks his head. “Yeah, Stiles. I kind of figured that out.”

“You did not,” Stiles says, eyes narrowed. “I bet Isaac had to tell you.” There’s no way Derek figured that out all by himself, this entire month has been a nightmare.

“Erica,” Derek says. “And Scott.” Derek flashes him a brief smile, there and gone again. It’s terrible in its beauty; if any part of this is a joke Stiles is going to lock himself in the bathroom and cry.

“So, okay, you said dinner, and I said I liked you, so what exactly does this mean?” Stiles says, waving a hand between them. “Because you’re sort of magnificent but also a dick, so.” He shrugs one shoulder.

“Stiles,” Derek says, slowly, “you set yourself on fire for me.”

“I didn’t!” That was totally an accident, and the burns are already almost completely gone.

Derek squares his shoulders and says, kind of like it’s paining him, “You did. But you didn’t have to,” and then, on a big sigh, “I want to take you to dinner. Or the movies, or for coffee, or whatever you want to do.”

Stiles stares at him, takes in Derek’s almost defensive stance, the determined tilt to his head, the pink on the tops of his ears and the way his thighs are straining at the seam of his ridiculously tight pants. “You like me,” he finally says. Stiles doesn’t know how, but he’s pretty sure it’s true. Derek is more awkward than Stiles ever thought possible and he _likes_ him, that whole painfully stilted couch conversation makes a little more sense now.

Derek tilts his head up to the sky. He says, “Yes, Stiles.”

“You really like me. You wanna share milkshake straws—”

“That’s gross.”

“And kiss me under the glorious moonlight and save me from trees and roofs and kittens every single day of the week, admit it,” Stiles says, pointing an accusing finger at him, because how can one man seriously be that goddamn adorable and also so beautiful it makes every molecule in Stiles’s body throb just looking at him?

“I don’t,” Derek says, but it’s a complete and total lie, his eyes are shining and his lips are twitching at the corners and his shoulders drop as he takes a step toward Stiles. And then his mouth bloom into a full grin and he admits, “Maybe I do.”

Stiles tips his chin up and says, “I’m gonna need some convincing. If you really want to take me to dinner.”

Derek’s warm palm slides into the curve of Stiles’s jaw. “What kind of convincing did you have in mind?”

Stiles swallows hard. “This, uh. This works.” There’s another hand on his nape, it feels cool on the skin burned raw from the sun. Stiles buries his hands in Derek’s hair and tugs him closer, their noses nearly touching. He smells like nutmeg and early mornings, like hot cut grass and smoke.

Just before their lips meet Stiles mutters, “If Isaac wins this bet I’m gonna punch him right in his smug, too-pretty face,” and Derek laughs, open-mouthed, into the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I write stuff on [tumblr](http://pantstomatch.tumblr.com).


End file.
